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M. Darusha Wehm

Explorer of Worlds Real and Imagined

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  • Short Stories
    • Bodies at Rest, Bodies in Motion
    • Fire. Escape. – Sample
    • The Foreigner
    • Major Tom and the Lucky Lady
    • The Interview
    • Lucidity
    • Fame
    • Chekhov’s Phaser
    • Career Opportunities
  • Science Fiction
    • Beautiful Red
    • Children of Arkadia
    • Andersson Dexter
      • Self Made
      • Act of Will
      • The Beauty of Our Weapons
      • Pixels and Flesh
    • Modern Love and other stories
    • The Voyage of the White Cloud
    • Retaking Elysium
    • The Qubit Zirconium
    • Hamlet, Prince of Robots
  • Mainstream Fiction
    • Devi Jones’ Locker
      • Packet Trade
      • Sea Change
      • Storm Cloud
      • Floating Point
    • The Home for Wayward Parrots
  • Anthologies
    • KeyForge: Tales From the Crucible
    • Trans-Galactic Bike Ride
    • Fireweed: Stories from the Revolution
    • Year’s Best Aotearoa New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume I
    • The Dame Was Trouble
    • Dystopia Utopia Short Stories
    • Science Fiction Short Stories
    • Procyon Press Science Fiction Anthology 2016
    • Use Only As Directed
  • Games/Interactive
    • The Martian Job
    • Alexander Systems
    • You Do You
    • if ink could flow backward
  • Books

Packet Trade – Sample

A shadow fell over me and I looked up. It was much brighter outside than it was in the bar and I couldn’t make out the person blocking the light.

“Are you Jones? Uh, Duh-vie Jones?” It wasn’t the worst attempt at my first name I’d ever heard, and at least he tried.

“That’s me,” I said, “and it’s Devi. Like the boy’s name.”

“Davy?” he echoed and I thought I caught a smile forming on his face.

“Yeah. Are you the captain?”

“No.” The smile fully blossomed. He moved out of the sun and I got a look at him. Late twenties, maybe. Blond hair, deep tan, but he somehow didn’t look anything like the surfer dudes that filled the beaches and hostels here. “I’m the mate, Isaac. Skipper’s talking to the Capitanía getting your paperwork settled.” Was I supposed to know what that meant? Was I supposed to have done something? He didn’t say anything else about it, instead he looked down at my bag. “That’s all your stuff?”

I nodded. My heart started to bang, the sound of blood rushed in my head and I realized that this was it. I was really doing this. I was going to get on a boat with a stupid name and a bunch of strangers and sail away. I don’t know if panic showed in my face, but Isaac didn’t look fazed.

“Glad to see someone who actually follows the instructions. You wouldn’t believe the stuff some of the people we’ve had come through have tried to bring aboard. The Bucket ain’t a cruise ship.” He looked at the battered watch on his wrist. “We’ll be heading out next morning, but it’s good to have a night aboard before we get under way. You checked out of your hostel already?”

“Yeah,” I said, fighting the urge to run.

“Well,” he said, “we can get going any time you want. Though, if it’s okay with you, I’ve got a mad hankering for a cheeseburger and this place does a good one. You mind if I get a bite before we go?”

“Um, sure?”

“Great! Want anything?” My stomach wasn’t happy at all with the half a beer I’d drunk, and the thought of a burger did nothing to help, but I was really thirsty and there was no way I was finishing that beer.

“You think they have some kind of juice?”

He laughed and said, “Oh, yeah. They have all the juice. Any preference?”

“Anything but apple.”

“Gotcha.” He ambled off and I watched him talk to the woman behind the bar in easy Spanish.

This whole thing wasn’t like me at all. I wasn’t ever one of those kids who was scared of the roller coaster or jumping off the high diving board, but the thought of taking a year off to go backpacking around Europe never appealed. If someone had told me ten months ago that I’d be sitting in a bar in Nicaragua with a man I’d never met before, watching him devour a burger before getting on a sailboat where I was going to spend the next nine months… well. I probably would have rolled my eyes and walked away. And yet, here I was, watching Isaac eat while I drank the best tasting glass of juice I’d ever had.

“You’ve got an auspicious name,” he said, taking a breather from eating. “Sailors are a superstitious lot, but I think it bodes well.”

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Primary Sidebar

Book cover for “Hamlet, Prince of Robots” by M. Darusha Wehm. A blue-green robot skull with a golden crown in the style of a neon sign, over a dark glitchy background. In the top left is a quote reading “Enormous fun and a real gift to lovers of Shakespeare or science fiction or both. Familiar and surprising, clever and moving.” From Kate Heartfield, author of Sunday Times bestseller The Embroidered Book.

Hamlet, Prince of Robots

Like Succession meets Blade Runner … an extremely compelling and satisfying read that allowed me to investigate my own place in our time of communion and interdependence with machines.

—Pip Adam, author of Acorn Prize winner The New Animals

Something is rotten in the state of cybernetics.

Elsinore Robotics is on the cusp of a breakthrough—the company is poised to create the first humanoid androids powered by true artificial intelligence. Their only rival, Norwegian Technologies, lost a publicly streamed contest between their flagship model, Fortinbras, and Elsinore’s HAM(let) v.1.

But when the first Hamlet model is found irreparably deactivated, the apparent victim of wild malware, the field of consumer cybernetics is thrown wide open.

Learn More

Free Stories

Lucidity

last night I had the most wonderful dream Carly moaned softly in her sleep, and rolled over. She dreamed and dreamed, and when she woke, she found that she still had the lingering shadow of a … Read More... about Lucidity

Fire. Escape. – Sample

This is a novelette that explores a different aspect of the world of the Andersson Dexter novels. You can get the complete ebook for free when you sign up to my mailing list. It all started with the … Read More... about Fire. Escape. – Sample

Fame

"Pupusas?" The woman's nasal voice reached Randall at the back of the bus before he saw her pushing her way down the aisle. He could smell the warm, raw meat smell of his own sweaty body, and his … Read More... about Fame

Publications

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • A Most Elegant Solution
  • A Most Elegant Solution (audio)
  • A Thorn in Your Memory
  • A Wish and a Hope and a Dream
  • Alexander Systems
  • Fear of Lying
  • Force Nine
  • Good Hunting
  • Home Sick
  • Home Sick (audio)
  • Homecoming
  • I Open My Eyes
  • if ink could flow backward
  • Microfiction @Thaumatrope
  • Modern Love
  • Modern Love (audio)
  • Preventative Maintenance
  • recursion
  • Reflections on a Life Story
  • Showing the Colours (audio)
  • The Care and Feeding of Mammalian Bipeds, v. 2.1
  • The Interview
  • The Stars Above Eos
  • War Profiteering
  • War Profiteering (audio)
  • we are all energy

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Other Writing

Poetry

  • . ….. ..story .. time
  • 140 and Counting
  • creation myth
  • Force Nine
  • how to make time
  • if ink could flow backward
  • recursion
  • the chrononaut
  • we are all energy

Non-fiction

  • 90ways.com

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